REUNION

Tony didn't know whether to feel relief or guilty. They were all mixed together and hard to make out. Like muddy skies or cloudy water. Knowing that he left Abel behind made his heart sting a bit whenever he would imagine her voice, her face, her smile. Everything about her caused pain deep in his chest, like a wound that was impossible to heal even in time. In the back of his mind, just remembering her words made him feel like she was still alive somehow. Could she have survived those wounds?

The plane landed at long last and the hatch opened slowly while Pepper Potts waited by the car. Tony got up from the wheelchair, dressed up in one of his nice suits once again with a brace around his right arm. Rhodey held on to his left arm and helped him down the ramp.

"Watch it, coming up here," Rhodey warned him.

Two men with a stretcher came up to them.

Tony shook his head and rolled his eyes."Are you kidding me with this? Get rid of them." He walked up to Pepper on his own. "Your eyes are red. A few tears for your long-lost boss?"

Pepper shook her head. "Tears of joy. I hate job hunting."

"Yeah, vacation's over." They got in the car that was waiting for them.

"Where to, sir?" Happy called from the front.

"Take us to the hospital, please, Happy." Pepper cut in.

"No," Tony said.

Pepper turned to him. "No? Tony, you need to go to the hospital."

"No is a complete answer."

"The doctor has to look at you."

"I don't have to do anything. I have been in captivity for three months. There are two things I want to do. I want an American cheeseburger and the other..."

"That's enough of that."

"Is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now." He ordered.

"Call for a press conference?"

"Yeah."

"What on earth for?"

"Hogan, drive. Cheeseburger first."

The car rolled up to the building where an old friend and tons of people where waiting.

Obadiah Stane walked to the car with the biggest grin on his face. "Look at this!" He opened the car door for him. "Tony." He grabbed him and gave him a strong hug. "We were going to meet at the hospital."

"No, I'm fine." Tony cleaned his mouth from the burger he was eating a second ago. Happy came around the car with the burger king bag. Tony reach in the bag and pulled out the last burger.

"You had to have a burger, yeah?" Obadiah just shook his head. "You get me one of those?" They started to walk to the building.

"There's only one left. I need it."

They strolled into the press conference hall as he took the last bite of his burger. The room was filled with clapping hands as they greeted Tony when he walked in.

A man walked up to Pepper suddenly. "Ms. Potts." He addressed her.

"Yes?"

"Can I speak to you for a moment?" He asked her.

"I'm not part of the press conference, but it's about to begin right now," Pepper told him.

"I'm not a reporter. I'm agent Phil Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." He handed her a business card.

"That's quite a mouthful." She took the card and looked it over.

"I know. We're working on it."

"You know, we've been approached already by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA..." She started up but Coulson cut in.

"We're a separate division with a more specific focus." He quickly cut in. "We need to debrief Mr. Stark about the circumstances of his escape," he explained.

Pepper nodded slowly. "I'll put something in the book, shall I?"

Hesitation crossed his eyes and he looked like he needed to say something urgently since he appeared rather nervous and pale. He didn't push it through and just waited. "Thank you."

Everyone turned their attention to Tony but the man lazily sat down in front of the pedestal instead of standing and taking the mic. He spoke up, his voice was a bit drained and flat. "Hey, would it be alright if everyone sat down?" He pulled the very last burger from his pocket. "Why don't you just sit down? That way I can see you, and I can... A little less formal." Slowly everyone took a set as asked, including Obadiah. "Good to see you, " Tony said to the man he called his partner.

Obadiah gave a weak smile. "Good to see you." He said right back.

Tony finally took a breath and looked upon everyone who waited in silence. "I never got to say goodbye to Dad. I never got to say goodbye to my father. There are questions that I would have asked him. I would have asked him how he felt about what his company did. If he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels." Silence took hold of him for a second as he tried to find the words the describe what happened back in those mountains. "I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability."

"Mr. Stark!" Someone called out from the crowd.

"Hey, Ben."

"What happened over there?" He asked a simple question.

"Well..."Tony leaned his head for a second, he was about to mention Abel, but the words to describe her just couldn't come from his mouth. "I had my eyes opened." He got up and went to the mic. "I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark international." The crowd went into a mess of sounds with people beginning to talk over each other. "Until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be." Obadiah started to push Tony off the stage.

"What you should take away from this is that Tony's back!" Obadiah tried his best to cover up what Tony just dropped. "And he's healthier than ever."

Obadiah road up on a segway at the arc reactor facility and right beside where Happy and the car was. Tony was nowhere to be seen. "Where is he?" Obadiah demanded.

Happy pointed to the factory. "He's inside."

Obadiah jumped off the Segway and up to the facility. He passed his card over the lock and it beeped. He walked in and saw Tony standing beside the large arc reactor.

Obadiah sighed walked up next to him, hands on his hips. "Well, that... That went well." He said with a stogie in his mouth.

Tony looked down. "Did I just paint a target on the back of my head?"

Obadiah frowned. "You're head? What about my head. What do you think the over-under on the stock drop is gonna be tomorrow?"

"Ah, optimistically, 40, points." He pulled his tie off.

"At a minimum."

"Yeah."

Obadiah stood beside Tony and stared at the arc reactor. "Tony, we're a weapons manufacturer." He tried to remind him.

"Obie, I just don't want a body count to be our legacy."

"That's what we do. We're iron mongers. We make weapons."

"It's my name on the side of the building," Tony said grimly

"And what we do keeps the world from falling into chaos."

"Not based on what I saw." Tony shook his head. "We're not doing a good enough job. We can do better. We're gonna do something else."

"Like what? You want us to make baby bottles?" Obadiah said sarcastically.

"I think we should take another look into arc reactor technology," Tony suggested.

Obadiah lifted his brows and shook his head. "Come on. The arc reactor, that a publicity stunt!" He gestured his hand to the large one. "Tony, come on. We built that thing to shut the hippies up!"

"It works," Tony said.

"Yeah, as a science project. The arc was never cost-effective. We knew that before we built it. Arc reactor technology, that's a dead-end, right?"

"Maybe."

"Am I right? We haven't had a breakthrough in that in what? 30 years."

"That's what they say." Tony turned around. "Could you have a lousier poker face? Just tell me, who told you?"

"Never mind who told me. Show me." Obadiah demanded.

"It's Rhodey or Pepper."

"I want to see it."

"Okay, Rhodey." Tony took his arm sling off and unbuttoned his shirt a bit, revealing the arc reactor glowing in his chest.

Obadiah stared at it for a bit without saying a word before he covered it back up. "Okay." He nodded very slowly.

"Okay?" Tony buttoned it up. "It works."

Obadiah laughed a bit and leaned in close to whisper, wrapping his arm around him. "Listen to me, Tony. We're a team. Do you understand? There's nothing we can't do if we stick together, like your father and I."

Tony felt a flash of pain in his chest but it wasn't because of the arc reactor, it was because it reminded him of when Abel and he were working together. Honestly, if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't have walked out of the cave alive. Her mysterious experience was absolutely genius. She was able to come up with things he would have never thought of. If she wasn't there, then that suit of armor would remain to be writing on paper. A dream.

"I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads-up, okay?" Tony apologized. "But If I had..."

"Tony. Tony, no more of this 'ready, fire, aim' business. You understand me?"

"That was Dad's line."

Obadiah patted his shoulder. "You gotta let me handle this. We're gonna have a play a whole different kind of ball now. We're going to have to take a lot of heat. I want you to promise me that you're gonna lay low for now."

They turned to walk out of the arc reactor factory, but a smooth and calm voice called out to Tony. "Tony Stark." Turning around, they saw a middle-aged man dressed in a suit, staring sternly at him. "I'm agent Phil Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, and I would like to have a word with you."

Obadiah gave this man a look. "I'm sorry, but questions are now over." He tried to show the man away.

Coulson remained to have a cool face. "This is important, and has something to do with his capture, and I would like to have a moment of his time." He said as calmly as ever, his facial expression showing that he's not going to give up.

Tony stared at the man in confusion and hoped that it wasn't because of the arc reactor in his chest. "Uh, just how important is it-"

"Very important, sir," Coulson said immediately and barely gave Tony time to finish his words. "I promise you, that it won't be a waste of your time."

Tony didn't know what to say. He honestly didn't think that it was that important, and he really didn't feel like being questioned after he barely crawled out of an Afghanistan cave alive with shrapnel in his chest, but this dude didn't look like he was going to give up. He signed and patted Obadiah on the shoulder and stepped away. "Don't wait up for me."

Both Tony and Pepper gave Coulson a suspicious look as they walked behind him through a long white hallway of a five-star hotel of the Balboa Bay Club and Resort.

It took Tony a few seconds before speaking. "Why are we at a resort? I think I had more than enough vacation time to last me two years."

Coulson didn't react to his snark. "There is someone who wants to meet you, Mr. Stark." He stopped in front of a room at the end of a very long hall. He swiped a key card across the reader and the door made an unlocking noise and he opened it up, stepping to the side. "Right this way."

Tony gave a weird look as he passed him before stepping inside. He groaned out loud and his eyes scanned the beautifully extravagant room. "I'll say one thing, you guys have good taste." He then rolled his eyes and stepped in the middle of the living room. "Where am I supposed to look?" He slapped his hands to his side. He was beginning to think that this was a trap of some sort and was starting to second guess his choice of coming here.

"The main bedroom, Mr. Stark," Coulson called out before shutting the door with him and Pepper on the outside.

Tony lifted a brow as the door made a soft click. If this was a way to secretly kill him then they're doing a lousy job of it. He sighed though and glanced around the room until his eyes landed on the door to the main bedroom. Tony walked over to it and placed his hand on the knob before it slid open. He looked to the bed and let out a small gasp as his heart began to speed up as he saw a figure laying up in the bed. She was young in her mid-twenty with soft and fluffy blonde hair and the world's most beautiful, big brown eyes with freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her lips were full and a healthy pink. Her skin was white and blemish-free too.

Abel looked up from the book in her lap and smiled like a warm sun at Tony. "Tony, I see you're all right." She spoke with a smooth and light voice.

Tony was stunned, shock, and frozen in place as not a single thought crossed his mind in the span of one whole minute. He just took up the sigh that he saw, what he smelled, and what his heart was feeling all in a single moment. He cursed his eyes for playing tricks on him. He yelled at the flowery lavender smell that filled the air and squeezed his heart for beating so loudly in his chest.

Tony opened his mouth and spoke almost hesitantly. "Abel...are you..alive?" he spoke just as softly as her voice was.

Abel blinked in confusion as if he asked the world's most ridiculous question. She then let out this laugh that came from the bottom of her heart as her arms shot up in an open manner like she was asking for a hug. Tony didn't even let himself think for this one and almost ran to her, sliding on his knees as their arms wrapped around each other. She didn't smell of the dirt that was in the cave. She didn't smell of the metal she was around, and for once...she didn't smell of gunpowder and blood. So this is where the smell of lavender came from?

Abel let out a sharp breath as her body turned around in bed. She acted like she was going to cry, but held on tight enough to where she didn't and buried her face into his neck and giggled.

Tony pulled away and held her face in his hand. "How...how are you still alive, Abel?"

Abel stifled a laugh. "I told you that I was going to be all right. I was rescued a few hours after you left." She summed up a bit, too short.

That caused an itch in the back of Tony's head, but he brushed it away because of the glee he was experiencing after having her back and alive. This was a miracle. This had to be a miracle. The last time he saw her, she was covered in blood In a dirty cave, and now she's clean, sitting in a luxurious bed.

"Your body, because last time I saw you, you were..." He grimaced with the memories.

"Tony." She placed her warm hand on the side of his face and spoke with a hypnotizing voice. "I am fine. I'm alive so you don't have to worry."

Tony let out a sharp breath and got up and compose himself before sitting on the bed next to her. He sighed and held his face in his hands. "God, you're alive..." He then snapped his head over to her angrily. "You scared the hell out of me."

Abel was taken back by his remark. "I'm sorry, but I can't see into the future. I don't know how things were going to end." She said calmly.

The door then slid open and Pepper peeked her head through. "Tony?" She called out. "Is everything all right?" She looked into the room and was taken back by seeing Tony with a beautiful blonde. She gave him a look, but Tony read right into that look. Pepper was thinking that this girl was one of the many that he slept with.

"I know what you think and it's not." Tony quickly cut in. "She... she's a really good friend of mine. I met her back...you know, and I just now figured it out that she made it out alive." He explained.

Pepper's eyes widen. "Oh..." her head snapped back to Abel and she extended her hand. "Sorry. There was a bit of a misunderstanding. I'm Mr. Stark's assistant, Pepper Potts."

Abel was somehow capable of getting on her feet, no problem, and shake Pepper's hand while smiling. "I'm Abel. Abel Bamlett."